Porter

by Dahners, Laurence

  Raspy continued waving his gun about but seemed less frantic as nothing had happened after he shot Allie. Roger’s coughing had died down though he still bent over and held his knees. Dean came back into the room from the bathroom wearing new shorts but no shoes. He waved his gun about too but both he and Raspy continued to calm down when nothing happened.

  Allie’s pain diminished to a dull throb and she had a sudden idea. She reached out with her sense and found the water pipe in the kitchen wall right behind her. She focused on Raspy’s gun, feeling the bullet in the chamber with powder in the shell behind the bullet. She opened a tiny port and was rewarded by the sensation of water spraying into the powder. Was it enough? She worried that if she opened the port too far, the water pressure might push the bullet out of the end of the cartridge and she surely didn’t want water dripping out of the gun to warn them that something was wrong. With a mental shrug, she turned to the gun that Dean had stopped waving and put back in his waistband holster, then to the one in Roger’s holster. She considered wetting the powder in the second cartridge in each gun, in case they just jacked the slide if the first bullet didn’t fire. Her leg was throbbing and she was finding it harder to concentrate and sense the water pipe so she closed her eyes for a moment’s rest. There must be something better she could do!

  Allie’s dad croaked, “If you’ll just let my family go, I’ll show you how I made the first device.”

  Raspy chuckled, “Oh sure, that’s a good one! You betcha Albert, you just promise, cross your heart, hope to die and we’ll let the family go to the police while you’re ‘splainin’ how to make the port machine. Sho’ ‘nuff Albert, tha’ be fine!” He laughed some more. There was a grunt and scraping of chair legs as he set the chair Dr. Dans was tied to back up right. “Oopsie, no, that wouldn’t work! Instead why don’t you start explaining and drawing pictures of the device right now, just so’s I won’t put any more bullets into your daughter?”

  “OK, but first put a bandage on her leg and take the gag off my wife.”

  “We’ll bandage her leg but your wife makes too much noise. I ain’t takin’ that gag off.”

  “OK, but you’ve got to let one of us check on Stephen.”

  Allie was surprised that her dad seemed to negotiating in such a level headed manner. He’d always seemed brilliant, but far too fuzzy headed for this type of discussion.

  Someone started cutting her pants leg open. She opened her eyes and saw Dean cutting them with a knife. She looked at her dad. He gave her a little half wink! Did he realize what had caused the storm of coughing? There were two small wounds on her calf, entrance and exit, she presumed. They weren’t bleeding much. She wiggled her foot, it hurt but the muscles worked.

  Dean said, “Hell, she ain’t hurt.” But he cut her pants leg into strips and wrapped them around her calf anyway.

  “Let me check my brother,” Allie said.

  Raspy said, “Soon as your dad starts drawing.”

  Allie looked and saw that Roger had lifted her dad’s chair and put it next to the table. They cut her dad’s hands loose and shoved paper and pencil in front of him. Her dad stared at Allie with a look of concentration as if he was trying to tell her something, but she had no idea what. Then he pulled the paper to himself and started drawing. Dean cut her hands, then her feet loose, then stepped back and pointed his gun at her. Allie swung her legs off the table and stood gingerly. Her leg hurt, but not horribly. Best not to let on though.

  Playing her injury up, she limped and stumbled over to Stephen and crouched down. He was still breathing and had a strong pulse but didn’t respond when she said his name. She pulled back an eyelid because she knew that’s what medical people did, but she didn’t know what to look for. So she reached out with her strange sense to feel the inside of his head, though she had no idea what it was supposed to feel like, never having done this before. The left side was different than the right! Crap, was it supposed to be that way? There was an area between the skull and what Allie assumed must be his brain on the left side that seemed different, and she realized the pressure was higher there! She’d heard of people bleeding into their heads and knew that such bleeding was bad! Her first impulse was to demand that they take Stephen to a hospital, but she immediately realized that that would never happen. Could she let out the pressure? What if she did some harm? Her thoughts raced desperately, but she decided she was pretty sure he was going to die if she didn’t do anything!

  Allie gritted her teeth and formed a port from the area of high pressure inside his skull, to the outside of his head. She was immediately relieved to see blood staining his hair, indicating she wasn’t just letting grey matter leak out. She didn’t think. She ran her fingers through it to be sure there wasn’t any brain in the stuff leaking out and was relieved to find only blood. She looked up and saw her mother’s wide eyes; her dad just looked grim at the sight of the blood on her fingers. She looked back down at Stephen and let more blood out until the pressure was so low that it didn’t flow any more. By the time she’d finished doing that she had a headache and knew she wouldn’t be able to make more than a tiny port for a little while. She hoped that the bleeding in his head had stopped.

  Raspy said, “Keep drawing!”

  Allie looked back over at her dad and saw him look down from her and back to whatever he was drawing.

  Allie sat down next to Stephen and tried to look non-threatening so that they wouldn’t tie her back up. For a moment she wondered what her dad was actually drawing and what they would do when they found out it wasn’t really a port producing machine. She put her head back and closed her eyes as if exhausted, which she actually was. If she were to cause these guys to bleed into their skulls like Stephen had, how long would it take them to become unconscious? Her leg was hurting in this position, she reached down and grasped her thigh to move it and her hand struck a lump in the pocket of her baggy cargo jeans. Her little tube of Mace pepper spray! She restrained the impulse to whoop and instead considered how to use it? She needed to wait a while because right now she would be limited in her ability to make ports. She just rested her head back on the wall with one hand on Stephen’s neck and closed her eyes. She needed some way to deal with these guys one at a time. But how…?

  Stephen moved under Allie’s hand and she was startled to realize that was so tired that she had dozed off! She looked down at her brother. His eyes were open! He still looked muzzy headed and unfocused but he was awake! “Stephen,” she bent over him, “you got hit on the head and you’re just waking up.” Allie sensed that a little blood had reaccumulated but it wasn’t much. She drained it out anyway. She looked over at her parents. “Stephen’s awake! Still looks pretty stunned though.” She turned to Raspy, “We need to get him to a hospital.”

  “Sure, Honey. Soon’s your dad finishes his drawings and explanations, we’ll be on our way.”

  From the smirk on Rasty’s face she could tell that that would never actually happen. She thought for a few more moments and decided that things probably wouldn’t get better. She was untied and at least her dad’s hands were free. “I’ve gotta pee,” she said as plaintively as she could.

  Rasty looked up from where he was watching Dr. Dans draw. He caught Dean’s eye and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

  Dean waved her to her feet with his gun and she limped across the living room area to the hallway where she presumed the bathroom was. Just down the hall an open door revealed a dirty bathroom. She stepped inside and started to close the door but to her startlement Dean blocked the door with his foot. “Nah, I gotta be with you,” he said with a nasty grin.

  At first Allie was dismayed to have this man in the bathroom with her but then realized that this played right into her intentions. She said, “OK, but you gotta turn your back.”

  “Sure,” he snickered and faced into the corner. Allie thought he probably planned to peek into the mirror on the back of the door or something so she did pull down her pants and sat on the toilet. The
n she reached out with her odd sense for the cold water pipe under the sink and also for Dean’s skull. She aligned the port to face toward his skull so that the spray of water wouldn’t cut into the soft matter of his brain, then opened a port as big as she could. She’d heard that the brain didn’t have any sensory nerves in it but Dean must have felt the vibration of the spray right through his skull because he reached tentatively up to the side of his head. But then he made a little grunting sound, swayed and started to fall over backward. Allie scrambled up from the toilet and caught him before he crashed to the floor. She laid him down gently, then sat back down and peed because she really did have to go. She flushed the toilet, washed her hands and went back out to the living room, glancing at the closed bedroom doors on her way. She wondered if there was someone else in one of the bedrooms, then she saw a tiny TV camera up in the corner of the hall. Probably, she decided. Monitoring things on the camera.

  Raspy grunted and said, “Where’s Dean?”

  Allie shrugged, “He had to pee too.” She noticed that Stephen had rolled over and thought that must be a good sign. Allie’s mother was watching her intently, and as Allie looked at her, her eyes flicked over at Roger where he sat on the couch, picking his nose.

  Allie’s dad cleared his throat, “Do you want me to explain the drawings I’ve made so far to you? Or should I wait to explain them to Randy?”

  Raspy said, “To Mr. Forst?” He glanced up at the light fixture over the table where Allie recognized the lens of another camera. Raspy looked back down at the drawing, “Naw, you can explain it to me.”

  Her dad started talking and pointing to things on the drawing but Allie tuned him out and focused on the pipe in the kitchen wall and on the inside of Roger’s skull. Once she was sure of her locations, she again opened as big a port as she could. Roger looked puzzled and also reached up to the side of his head. Allie was finding that it was difficult to hold this port open but she strained to do so for a few moments longer until she saw Roger slumping and making funny swallowing movements. Then his head flopped back and he started to snore. Loudly! Allie gasped as she let the port shut.

  Raspy was turning to look at his compatriot who was now slumping to the side and drooling as he snorted another breath. “Roger! You idiot! Wake up!” Raspy’s eyes opened wide and he stepped over and kicked Roger’s leg. “Roger!” The big man just sagged farther to the side and Raspy pulled out his gun with startling swiftness. “Dean! Get your butt in here!” Allie knew she didn’t have the strength to make another port big enough and long enough to put Raspy out too! Raspy was looking wildly around the room as if suspecting someone of shooting poisoned darts or something. Worse he was moving constantly around, presumably to avoid such darts but also making it hard for Allie to consider making a port in him in precisely the right location. Raspy suddenly shouted, “Come out you bastard or I kill the kid!” He pointed his gun at Stephen!

  Allie panicked, any of the things she could think to do might make him pull the trigger and she thought she would only be able to make a little port. She focused on the inside of her Mace pepper spray cartridge, then reached out for Raspy’s nasal passages. Could she grab the gun and make a port at the same time? Suddenly, off to Raspy’s left she saw her mother tip her chair over. The sudden motion and loud bang as the chair hit the floor caused Raspy to move the gun briefly towards Mrs. Dans. As it did, Allie opened the biggest port she could from the Mace canister to the back of Raspy’s nasal passage. She immediately knew it was a small port, but apparently it was plenty big enough to let a significant dose of capsaicin through. Raspy threw his head back in agony but Allie saw him convulsively squeeze the trigger. The gun was pointing at Stephen again! There was a little pop, like a cap gun, but no roar.

  Damn! She’d forgotten that she’d let water into that cartridge. Raspy fell to his knees and dropped the gun clutching his face which had turned bright red. He was coughing and gasping for breath and tears were pouring down his cheeks. Allie picked up the gun and jacked the slide to get the wet bullet out of the chamber. Then she handed the gun to her dad and went to get the knife out of the holster on Roger’s belt.

  Allie had just started cutting her mother’s gag loose when one of the bedroom doors slammed open and a man stepped into the room carrying a sawed off shotgun. “Dans, put that phone down!” he yelled.

  Allie saw her dad had a phone in his hand. Apparently he’d picked it up off the end table behind him. He dropped it on the floor. “Hello Forst,” he said resignedly.

  “So Dans, I’m thinking your daughter has the port machine somewhere in those baggy pants. Keep your hands in view kid!”

  Allie found herself looking down the apparently huge barrel of the shotgun and she slowly raised her hands in the air.

  “What are you doing with a knife?”

  “Cutting my mom loose.”

  “Ah. Well. Put the knife on the table and step over here into the middle of the room. Humpf, to think your dad had a working model all this time he had me chasing my tail trying to make another!”

  Allie slowly set the knife on the table. She tried to reach out with her sense for the shell in the chamber of the shotgun, but it seemed like she’d exhausted her talent for the moment. She stepped over to where he indicated.

  “Now, I want you take off your pants without reaching in the pockets. I don’t know how you control the ‘porter’, but I don’t want you even touching it. If I think you’re trying to do so I will fire this shotgun, got that? I’ll shoot you above the waist though.” He chuckled. “Wouldn’t want to damage the porter!”

  Allie nodded and slowly reached for her belt, loosening it and the snap to her pants, then letting the loose pants fall.

  Forst stared at her for a moment. “Nice legs! Now kick the pants over here. I don’t suppose you’d tell me what you did to these idiots I’ve got working for me?” He pointed with his chin to Raspy, still wiping at his eyes and struggling to breathe on the floor.

  Allie again tried to sense the shell in the shotgun, to no avail. She stepped out of the pants and kicked them over part of the way to Forst.

  Still looking at her legs, he stepped forward, reaching down for the pants. As he did so, the barrel of the shotgun dipped toward the floor! Could she grab it? She was starting to step forward when, BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Forst was thrown against the wall. Allie looked over to see her dad lowering Raspy’s smoking gun. In the sudden silence, “Holy crap, Dad! I didn’t know you could shoot!”

  “Actually a gun’s a pretty simple tool.” He reached onto the table and picked up the knife, cutting his ankles loose from the chair.

  Allie stepped over to check on Forst who was still breathing but had four holes in his torso and looked pretty to be in pretty bad shape. “We’d better call 911.”

  Her dad nodded at the phone where it lay on the floor, “They’re still on the line, I’m sure they’ll be here pronto after hearing gunshots.” Now he was cutting Sarah Dans loose from her chair. “Put Forst’s head down and his legs up, then check on your brother again if you can.” In a whisper he asked, “I’m assuming you drained a hematoma off Stephen’s brain?”

  Allie pulled Forst around until his head was on the floor, then lifted his feet up into a chair. Assuming he didn’t want the 911 people to hear she whispered back, “There was a collection of blood next to his brain that I let out, yes. Is that a ‘hematoma?’”

  “Yep, good thinking. Did you bleed these other guys into their heads too?” He was checking on Roger and laying him down on the couch.

  “No, just cold water out of a pipe.”

  Allie’s mom picked the phone up off the floor. “Yes there has been a shooting and several people are badly hurt. Please hurry! No, the shooting is all over and the bad men are disarmed. Please hurry.”

  Her dad turned to her, not seeming at all like his usual absent minded self. In a low voice, “OK, we don’t want the police figuring out what you can do, how did you keep the gun from shooting Stephen?
”

  “Water in the bullet.”

  Her dad nodded. “Find the shell you jacked out of the chamber. Did you do that to any of the other shells?”

  Allie nodded, “First shell in each of their guns.” She was astonished at how fast her dad was figuring all this out. He didn’t seem at all like the doddering, befuddled professor she thought she knew.

  “OK and put your pants back on.” He headed into the kitchen and came back with a dish towel.

  Allie had been startled to realize that she was still just wearing her panties. She put her pants back on and picked up the shell off the floor. Her dad came back from the bathroom with another cartridge and went to Mrs. Dans, placing her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, then went to Roger, pulling his gun out of his shoulder holster with the dishtowel and jacking the slide, then putting the gun back without touching it with his fingers. As he was doing this he said, “Here’s our story, ‘Dean and Roger got in a fight in the bathroom and Dean never came back out. Roger must have gotten hurt because he passed out after he came back in here; Allie shot Jones with her pepper spray when he threatened to shoot Stephen. Otherwise we tell the truth about how they were trying to beat a technical secret out of me and threatening you to obtain my cooperation. The fewer the lies, the better our story will hold together.”

  Allie realized that Jones must be Raspy’s real name. She bent close to her brother and sensed the inside of his skull. There was a little bit of blood but it didn’t seem like much and there wasn’t any pressure so, as weak as her port ability was, she didn’t try to let any out. She looked over at her mom who was calmly telling the 911 people that there were three unconscious people and one “bad” man who’d been shot. She heard the water running in the kitchen.

  The door slammed open and two armored, helmeted policemen burst in wielding shotguns, “Hands up!”